A review of the effect of Ozzlo pillows on low back pain during pregnancy was conducted by researchers in the Cochrane Collaboration.  After searching for all relevant studies, they found one study done by other researchers.  Their findings are summarised below.

Please note that this Cochrane review has been updated since the summary below. See the abstract of that update here.

Low back pain during pregnancy - why Ozzlo pillows?

Many women experience back or pelvic pain during pregnancy. This pain generally increases as pregnancy advances. It can interfere with daily activities, can prevent women from going to work, and sometimes disturbs sleep.

An Ozzlo pillow is a curved, sloping, soft cushion that conforms to the shape of the woman's pregnant abdomen.  The aim of the Ozzlo pillow is to allow the woman to sleep better and to relieve her back pain by supporting her abdomen while she sleeps. The pillow is meant to be placed under the woman's abdomen while lying on her side.

The pillow is, to our knowledge, no longer made.

What does the research say?

Not all research provides the same quality of evidence. The higher the quality, the more certain we are about what the research says about an effect. The words will (high quality evidence), probably (moderate quality evidence) ormay (low quality evidence) describe how certain we are about the effect.

For pregnant women with low back pain, we are very uncertain whether the Ozzlo pillow improves pain or sleep.

The study did not measure the effect of the Ozzlo pillow on sick leave or on the ability to perform daily activities.

Table of results

Quality of evidence: The quality of the evidence is either ranked as high, moderate, low or very low. The lower the quality, the less certain we are about the results.

Where does this information come from?

The Cochrane Collaboration is an independent global network of volunteers, dedicated to summarizing research about health care.

This information is taken from this Cochrane Review: Pennick VE, Young G. Interventions for preventing and treating pelvic and back pain in pregnancy. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2007, Issue 2. Art. No.: CD001139. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD001139.pub2.

This summary was prepared by:

Claire Glenton and Gunn Vist, the Nordic Cochrane Centre's Norwegian branch, Norwegian Knowledge Centre for Health Services, on behalf of the Cochrane Complementary and Alternative Medicine Field, and with funding from the US National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) of the US National Institutes of Health (grants number R24 AT001293).

Ozzlo pillow for pelvic and back pain in pregnancy

Patient or population: patients with pelvic and back pain in pregnancy
Settings: Australia
Intervention: Ozzlo pillow

*The basis for the assumed risk (e.g. the median control group risk across studies) is provided in footnotes. Thecorresponding risk (and its 95% confidence interval) is based on the assumed risk in the comparison group and the relative effect of the intervention (and its 95% CI).

CI: Confidence interval; RR: Risk ratio

GRADE Working Group grades of evidence

High quality: Further research is very unlikely to change our confidence in the estimate of effect. 

Moderate quality: Further research is likely to have an important impact on our confidence in the estimate of effect and may change the estimate.

Low quality: Further research is very likely to have an important impact on our confidence in the estimate of effect and is likely to change the estimate.

Very low quality: We are very uncertain about the estimate.

1 Unclear randomization procedure and allocation concealment. 16 % lost to follow up. Inappropriate double counting of patients in the cross over study.
2 The Ozzlo pillow is no longer commercially available
3 Only one study with few events and few participants